Tag: Real Madrid

Champions of the Indian Super League’s (ISLs) inaugural season, Atletico de Kolkata (ATK) have done splendid work over the past two years in promoting grassroots football in the city. In 2015 they brought West Bengal’s Indian Football Association’s (IFA) Nursery League back to life. Although their second run in the league was not as successful as the first, the club is still doing what they can for the sport. Co-owners, Sanjiv Goenka and Utsav Parekh are both focused on setting up a football academy in the city and promoting the sport. At their proposed academy, bright young stars can focus on football training while continuing with their academics as well.

An $185 million investment. 160 acres. 50 football pitches. A partnership with Real Madrid. Hogwarts-style buildings. 2,600 boys. 200 girls. And it was all built in 10 months. Welcome to Evergrande Football School in Qingyuan, Guangdong (rural southern China).

Driven by Chinese President, Xi Jinping’s passion for football, Evergrande Football School is symbolic of how far ahead China has gone ahead of India in the effort to nurture grassroots talent. Their goal is to have China compete at the World Cup again (after 2012) and, who knows, even challenge traditional powerhouses like Germany, Argentina and Brazil in the years to come.

Looks a brilliant facility. Wonder when we’ll have something like it in India…

The launch of the Hero Indian Super League (ISL) has definitely encouraged the sport of football in the country. While more youth have been drawn to the sport, the ISL teams are doing what they can to give youngsters a platform to showcase their talent. After winning the inaugural season of the league, Atletico de Kolkata brought West Bengal’s Indian Football Association’s (IFA) Nursery League back to life. While some may argue that the team had selfish interests in doing so, the fact of the matter is that nearly 2000 children below the age of 14 got a chance to play competitive football. The club used the league to source new talent to train, and the team’s talent spotters looked for 15 to 20 children to send for the ISL grassroots development programme.

In the second season of the ISL, the West Bengal team were unable to reach the finals, but they haven’t let this interfere with their strong grassroots programme. Sanjiv Goenka, co-owner of the club, has spoken about his hopes of also acquiring a foreign team, but for now, his immediate focus is to build a football academy in Kolkata and really work on grassroots football in the country.

In August last year, Star Sports launched an interesting campaign called Young Heroes. A unique scouting and Under-15 football tournament, the campaign was started to boost grassroots football in the country, and unearth hitherto unknown football talents for the future. Conducted in 15 cities across India, around 60 to 100 schools from each city were invited to participate in the Young Heroes program. The competition attracted approximately 420,000 students and matches were played for two days in every city. These matches were attended by a group of scouts headed by ex-Iranian football international, Jamshid Nassiri, who selected 3-4 boys from each team to participate in a training camp.